Ahead of NSW Education Week 2023, the Institute released its latest report, “Local links and learning: resilience in regional, rural and remote schools.”
Unique in its scope and collaborative development, the report sets out clear and practical options to boost the resilience of schools in regional, rural and remote areas of NSW.
Professor Peter Shergold AC
In recent years, schools in regional, rural, and remote New South Wales (NSW) have been affected by floods, drought, bushfires, animal plagues and other major disruptions, including COVID-19.
In response, school communities have launched effective, locally-led initiatives to enhance their ability to withstand and recover from such disruptions.
The department is committed to supporting regional, rural and remote learning communities across NSW. This research helps to build the evidence base around boosting resilience in regional, rural and remote schools and will help inform our work.
Ben Ballard, Executive Director, Regional, Rural and Remote Education Policy, NSW Department of Education
Drawing on these local experiences and examples from other parts of Australia and abroad, the report outlines how resilience can be boosted by fostering community ties and harnessing learning opportunities.
“It is vital that a school community’s local capabilities are leveraged and boosted, so that they are ready to deal with future disruptions,” the report argues.
The report identifies four policy areas where further efforts would be most effective: 1) Student development and learning; 2) the leadership capacity of principals and teachers; 3) a whole-of-school resilience approach; and 4) the ties between schools and their communities.
Focussing on these policy areas can help school communities build up and nurture the social, logistical, resource and knowledge supports required for them to contend with future disruptions, thereby strengthening their overall resilience.
The report is the result of the Institute’s highly collaborative approach to generating innovative policy solutions. The policy opportunities identified are based on an analysis of existing research, consultations, futures exercises, and workshops involving more than 50 people, including academic experts, school principals, local councils, public servants, and service providers across NSW, Australia and internationally.
